CD reviews 5/20: Rita Wilson, Saint Etienne and JD McPherson

POP: Rita Wilson, "AM/FM" (Decca)

The debut album of the actress (and Mrs. Tom Hanks) is a charming throwback to Los Angeles soft rock of the 1970s, when Wilson, 55, was attending Hollywood High School. She was a decade younger than musicians such as Jimmy Webb and Jackson Browne, who appear on her album along with Sheryl Crow and Faith Hill. An unpretentious singer with a sweet, steady voice, Wilson sings 14 personal favorites with plaintive, unvarnished simplicity and understatement. The opening cut, "All I Have to Do Is Dream," sung with the rocker Chris Cornell, establishes the album's mood of fond remembrance. Songs from the late 1950s and '60s, such as "Walking in the Rain," tend to be hopeful and innocent, and those from the '70s, such as "Faithless Love," more careworn and disillusioned. The best point of comparison between then and now is the classic torch song "Love Has No Pride," which was memorably recorded by Linda Ronstadt, who wailed it; Bonnie Raitt, who toughened it up, and Rita Coolidge, who crooned it. Wilson's version is quieter and less fraught and distills the album's retrospective attitude of looking back from a point of grown-up serenity. The view is lovely. -STEPHEN HOLDEN, NEW YORK TIMES

POP: Saint Etienne, "Words and Music" (Universal)

Seven years since their last full-length CD, these London electro-poppers return with a love letter to the power of pop. From the glittering "I've Got Your Music," a paean to mixtape magic ("When I'm alone/ in my 'phones/ I feel love/ in digital stereo") to "Haunted Jukebox" (an ode to melody-evoked memories), at the heart of these 13 disco-dappled tracks is pop's ability to enchant, to open a world beyond one's childhood bedroom, to inform and transform. "Over the Border," chanteuse Sarah Cracknell's spoken-word opener recounting a 10-year-old's musical awakening, inquires, "And when I was married, and when I had kids, would Marc Bolan still be so important?" The answer: an emphatic yes. -BRIAN HOWARD, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

ROCK: JD McPherson, "Signs & Signifiers," (Rounder)

Rock musicians have tapped into other genres for half a century, but Oklahoma singer/guitarist McPherson pays tribute to the time when other genres converged to create rock 'n' roll. Recorded with vintage microphones and tape machines, the vibrant, rockabilly-heavy disc brings to mind Memphis' Sun Studios and the likes of Bobby Helms, Bill Haley and Little Richard. Nearly all the cuts were penned solely or partly by McPherson, and most sound like something lifted from long ago. The two that don't are the most inviting: The smoky title track is penetrating with its hypnotic wobble, and the string-supported "A Gentle Awakening" shuffles with beguiling subtlety. Meanwhile, McPherson is the commanding, naked mouthpiece, spitting out soul in the hot arrangements. -CHUCK CAMPBELL, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE